Shadows in the Image of Men
by The Sacred and Profane
Summary: Reno is haunted by his memories, each one a nightmare. Non-fluffy ReTi for RoxStar09. Violence and mature content.
1. Chapter 1

Shadows in the Image of Men

AN: I own nothing in this story. Warning: Violence ahead. This is for RoxStar09. Please R&R.

The cool night breeze that slipped through the partially opened window did little to soothe the Turk sweating up a storm in his sleep. His mind replayed scenes of a past he wished he could forget but they were never finished...

_He didn't remember his parents. To the nine year old Reno all he knew in the world was the shadowy confines of the orphanage and the screams that kept him up at nights. During the day, he was treated somewhat kind. He was never starved or beaten then._

_But as darkness fell, things suddenly changed..._

_The red head was led along with other children into a cold stone room, video recording equipment set up and some orphanage workers standing around._

_"Children, you've been called upon to perform a service for a few of our clients. They have certain...tendencies. In short, a few of you won't be leaving this room again." Before any of the assembled orphans could ask what the man meant by this, Reno and another child were pulled out under the semicircle of orange light. _

_It wasn't until years later that Reno realized they were making snuff films. But then all he cared about was surviving. That first night he was put under the flickering light and stared at the boy across from him, he didn't move._

_"Kill each other," a woman's voice called out. Still neither boy moved. A cattle prod was smashed against Reno's head then and he was shocked by over 100 volts. Blue sparks illuminated the shadows of the room briefly and then faded. Reno was panting hard, some blood trickling from his mouth._

_"Kill each other," the same woman called out._

_Reno remembered punching the boy, pulling his hair, striking at every visible opening in a mad fury. Seeking any advantage so he wouldn't be injured like that ever again._

_As he pounded the final punch into the boy's bloody and broken face, Reno looked into the blue slits that managed to stare out into the world through bruised and swollen eyelids._

_"Finish it..."_

_Closing his eyes, Reno did as he was told..._

He bolted out of bed, breathing erratic and harsh. Beside him, he felt a cool hand touch his shoulder.

"Another nightmare?" Reno turned to look at Tifa as she asked this, his eyes reflecting deep terror, at least for a moment. "Reno, you know you can talk to me about anything, right?"

"I know Tifa..." Reno answered his girlfriend. But he didn't shove her away when she wrapped her arms around him. As he lay back down beside her, he moved as close as he could, praying that her presence would stop the memories from tormenting him, at least for the night.


	2. Chapter 2

Killing Me

AN: I own nothing in this story. Hansel and Gretel are originally from the anime Black Lagoon but this isn't a crossover fic. Please R&R.

A few days later, Reno sat at the kitchen table. Tifa was in the kitchen chopping vegetables for their dinner with a large butcher knife.

_Thunk_ went the knife as it buried itself a little into the carving board.

_Thunk_...

Reno's mind started to drift...

_Thunk...a child screamed as an arm was sliced off. A girl giggled, amused at the sight of the boy rolling around, blood spewing like a fountain._

_"What's the matter little one? Can't handle my knife's kisses?"_

_"Nii-sama, we can't have our fun with this one," a male voice reprimanded the giggling girl. The young girl gave a sigh._

_"You're right, Nee-sama. Maybe they'll let us have our fun later on."_

_That was the first time Reno had heard the twins known as Hansel and Gretel speak._

_Years had passed and Reno was now 14. Growing along with his body, his reputation was well known among the orphans. They called him a monster and any child that was in the ring with him knew they were finished. Little did they know that the boy detested killing but he had to live, above all else._

_Hansel and Gretel, on the other hand, loved killing. They had been with the orphanage since their births. It was said that the identical twins would bathe in their victim's blood if given the chance and loved extending the pain of their opponents for as long as possible._

_Reno's first sight of them came one night as he was being returned to his room. The twins had silver-grey hair and the brightest blue eyes Reno had ever seen. They were holding hands as they walked beside each other and Reno shivered when they both stared at him._

_"Nii-sama, isn't he handsome?" Hansel said, smiling at Reno. Gretel nodded, eyes moving up and down Reno's scarred form._

_"Yes he is, Nee-sama. Maybe we'll get to play with him someday." And with a bow, the twins left._

_That night as Reno lay awake on his cot, he couldn't get their piercing blue eyes out of his head. Pulling his blanket tight around him, Reno prayed for an end to this hellish existence, that someone would find him and take him away._

_But Reno knew the reality. The orphanage was in the slums and no one cared about the slums. And even when the Shinra inspector would make his rounds through the orphanage, the owners would __smile and give him a bulky package. The inspector would take the bribe and continue on his way._

_Even with this reality however Reno's liberty was at hand, he just didn't know what it would take, and what he would lose in the process..._

Thunk. A loud slice brought Reno's attention back to the present. Tifa gave a slight sound of pain then and he stepped into the kitchen, noticing the trail of blood escaping from Tifa's finger.

"It's nothing Re, just a tiny cut- but she went silent as Reno ran some cold water and washed the blood away.

"A cut could get infected babe and I wouldn't want you to have to get a new finger. I like the old one too much," Reno joked. Tifa rolled her eyes at that and kissed him on the cheek.

"And here I thought you had stopped making stupid jokes," Tifa commented.

"Sorry Tifa, but you're stuck with them." Her expression turned a bit more serious as she noticed Reno's hand tremble a little.

"Reno I'm alright. It doesn't even hurt that much," Tifa said softly.

"It's not that..."

"Have another nightmare? Reno we need to talk about this, you can't keep shutting me out. I want to help you so let me in, please." Reno gave a sigh and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Tonight...I'll tell you everything later tonight."

"Promise?" Tifa asked.

"Yeah, I promise," Reno replied, sealing the deal with a kiss.


	3. Chapter 3

Salvation

AN: I own nothing in this story. Final chapter here, hope it's a satisfactory ending. Please R&R.

After eating the dinner that Tifa had made with her usual skill, Reno stood up and gestured for her to come closer.

"Are you going to tell me now?" At her question, Reno nodded.

"But first, let's take a walk."

Tifa noticed the way Reno was staring off into the distance, his gaze somewhat vacant. She snuggled up to him, a hand wrapping around his waist and her head touching his left shoulder as they continued their walk. Reno looked at her then, his eyes refocusing on her face.

"You can take your time, I'm not going anywhere," Tifa said. Reno cleared his throat.

"I never knew my parents..." he began. He heard a child sobbing from a far distance then and he remembered, even as he continued telling his past to Tifa.

The day he was saved...

* * *

_The semicircle of orange light seemed to welcome Reno as he stepped out into the arena, the illumination marking the adolescent's still developing muscles. He had become a favorite for the orphanage's clients and tonight was expected to be as wonderful for them and their twisted pleasure as any other._

_"Ah, Reno...we've selected a newcomer for your first opponent tonight. Treat her as well as you do the others, okay?" A cry came from the crowd of children as a wide eyed girl was shoved out under the light. Her ten year old frame was rather skinny and she looked almost malnourished. Her deep brown eyes looked up at Reno, body trembling in fear._

_"P-please...no..." the child whimpered. Reno stepped forward slowly, inching closer and closer to her. His arm raised as he came within a few feet of her. An adult came into the light then, one of the customers, his face swimming with primal lust._

_"Kill her..." The man moved closer, sweat gleaming on his fat face._

_Reno waited._

_The chubby man moved closer then, close enough to touch._

_Reno struck. Before the customer knew what hit him his arm was grabbed and he was flung over Reno's shoulder and went sailing through the air, landing with a crash amongst some of the recording equipment. Sparks crackled and soon a fire had broken out. Children screamed and moved away from the blaze while adults swarmed, trying to quell the rising inferno. _

_Reno stared into the girl's eyes._

_"Run away and- but a rifle butt was slammed into the back of his head before he could give __anymore instructions to the child. But as the light faded from his eyes, he managed to catch a glimpse of the girl vanishing up the stairs._

_So he had managed to do one good thing in his life at least, he remembered thinking to himself._

_

* * *

_

_A song suddenly pierced through his passed out senses, the voices angelic. The first lyric was sung by a girl's voice and the second by a boy's. And this is what it was:_

_"My mother has killed me." _

_"My father is eating me."_

_"My brothers and sisters sit under the table."_

_"Picking up my bones and they will bury them."_

_"Under the cold- but Gretel stopped singing. She must have noticed that Reno was no longer unconscious._

_"Nee-sama, he's awake!" She sounded delighted, like Christmas was just around the corner. Reno's eyes flickered and then opened. He soon found that he was shackled to a wall, his wrists manacled and arms locked above him. He was also naked except for some underwear and he was submerged up to his thighs in cold water. _

_"I see that, Nii-sama," Hansel said. Gretel moved closer to Reno then and traced a finger along his chest._

_"Reno-sama, you shouldn't have done that. Now everyone's really upset." Hansel also came forward at this, his fingers cupping Reno's cheek._

_"Nii-sama's right. You made us cry, being so rude. But it's not all bad...now we get to play with you," Hansel said softly, a smile on his face. Electricity crackled then and Reno saw that Hansel had a tazer in his hand. He pushed it against Reno's chest gently before activating it, Reno's body arching as the volts traveled through his body._

_"Nee-sama, let me have a turn!" Gretel exclaimed, pouting. Hansel then handed his sister the tazer and she turned it on before shoving it in the water. Blood pooled from Reno's mouth and he started to thrash around, the manacles biting into his wrists as his body sagged once the tazer was removed._

_The twins kept shocking him for about ten minutes before they started to get bored. Smoke rose from Reno's body but his heart still beat._

_"He has such beautiful eyes Nii-sama," Hansel said after several minutes. Gretel nodded._

_"That he does, Nee-sama, what should we do with them?" Hansel produced a knife then and gave it to Gretel, bowing a little._

_"Ladies first, Nii-sama." Gretel bowed back and kissed her brother._

_"Why thank you Nee-sama." Gretel moved closer to Reno then and cupped his right cheek._

_"Reno-sama, you have a handsome face but somethings missing," Gretel mused. Her face brightened when an idea struck her. Taking the knife, she moved the point to the upper left corner of his right eye. Stabbing lightly, she dragged the blade in a crescent shape roughly before pulling it out. Reno screamed at the intense pain and Gretel chuckled._

_"The blood suits you Reno-sama..." The girl then licked along the bloody trail she had created, moaning in pleasure. Breaking apart after a few moments, she handed the blade to Hansel._

_"Be careful, Nee-sama, we don't want to injure him too badly or else we won't have anything to play with for a long time." _

_"Don't worry, Nii-sama." Hansel moved to Reno's left then and gave him a matching crescent wound. He then mimicked Gretel's action and licked up some of Reno's blood. Turning to Gretel once he was finished, he smiled._

_"I'm going to report to the adults, Nii-sama, okay?" Gretel nodded._

_"I won't play with him until you get back, Nee-sama." Hansel then left and Gretel observed the still bleeding form of the young boy._

_"You're a good person Reno-sama..." Reno stirred a little at this but didn't do anything else. "I can tell." Once she was finished speaking, Gretel started wiping the blood off of the knife, humming the song from earlier to herself. This continued for several minutes until the door burst open, showing an agitated Hansel._

_"Nii-sama, Shinra is here!" _

_"Can we kill them, Nee-sama?" Gretel asked. Hansel thought about this before nodding._

_"If we go now, we could surprise them." Hansel then took Gretel's arm and they ran off._

_Reno heard gunfire and several screams then before silence reigned. He tried to move his body but couldn't muster up enough energy. Finally the silence was broken by the door being kicked open, several armed men in suits pouring into the room._

_One of them approached Reno. Reno opened his eyes a little and saw his Wutain features. He was about 18 or 19 and he looked with compassion at the captive redhead._

_"You're going to be alright, you're free."_

_"P..promise?" Reno managed to say, blood spilling from his lips along with the question. The man nodded._

_"Of course. What's your name?" As he was talking the man undid Reno's shackles and caught his limp frame._

_"R-reno..."_

_"It's nice to meet you Reno, my name is Tseng." Reno then passed out and he heard Tseng's voice calling for a medic._

_

* * *

_

Reno paused here and took a breath, not meeting Tifa's face. She was sobbing silently and hugging onto Reno's side tightly.

"Apparently the girl I saved managed to get help, though I don't know how she did it," Reno said softly. "The twins were killed in the ensuing firefight and Tseng's commander got taken out, leaving him in charge of the Turks."

"And so you joined them..." Tifa whispered. Reno nodded. "What happened to the girl?"

"I don't know. I never found her," Reno replied. He stopped walking then and Tifa finally realized where they were. The Plate Memorial.

It was constructed by the citizens of Edge and had the names of all those who had died in the incident engraved all along it's surface. Reno and Tifa approached it, Reno's fingers tracing along it's side.

"Then I started a new kind of killing." He paused here and looked into Tifa's eyes. She noticed tears were trailing down his face. "Maybe I should have died back there, then these people would still be alive." Tifa hugged him tightly then and shook her head back and forth.

"No...you deserved life just like anybody else. Thank you for telling me," she said gently.

"I've lived two lives, Tifa. The first as a killer, the second as a Turk. But any life begins by simply living it...and even though I don't deserve someone like you, would you stay with me for my third?" In response Tifa kissed him deep on the lips, chastely, and once they had unlocked their lips, she kissed away his tears.

"I'll stay with you Reno, as long as you'll have me." Reno's eyes got a bit brighter at this and he finally returned her embrace.

"Promise?" he whispered into her neck.

"Yeah...I promise," Tifa replied just as softly.

* * *

A month later when Elena and Rude were over for dinner, the blond noticed the ring on Tifa's finger. Once she realized what was going on, she squealed and hugged both Tifa and Reno tightly. After the congratulations were given, Reno looked at Elena with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Laney, did I meet you somewhere before I became a Turk?" Elena looked into Reno's face then and gave him a smirk.

"Why would you think something like that Reno?" Reno just ruffled her hair and made a stupid blonde joke, causing Elena's cheeks to redden and puff out in indignation.

She wouldn't tell him about the first time she did see him, surrounded by shadowy figures in that cold basement. She wouldn't tell him how frightened she was as he walked up to her, eyes promising death. She wouldn't tell him how she ran with all her might and finally managed to find help.

At least not yet. That time would come later, but for now she needed to remind him of the present, of their friendship, to protect him just as he had done for her all those years ago, and make him realize just how good of a person he truly was.


End file.
